Saturday, July 31, 2010

Dealing with Drinks

Lately I've been getting into steampunk (which is an aesthetic which deals primarily with what if the internal combustion engine never was invented and we lived in a clock work world; go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk for a better summary). Amongst my internet finds was Food for the Boiler a "steampunk cookbook". It's available for free in pdf form here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/fuel-for-the-boiler-a-steampunk-cookbook/3399708

The book itself is a collection of recipes that were given on a steampunk forum. As with any community based cookbook, there are some great recipes, and some mediocre ones. Half of them use the metric system, which is a hurdle in and of itself to some people (myself included). I also had trouble seeing any steampunk connection with a lot of the recipes, even just in the name. In any event, the only recipe I wanted to try was "Fruit Hip Flask Liqueurs". Since the recipe is available for free online (and you're already here, so I know you can use a computer) I'll just let you skim it yourself.

I chose a small jar with one of those wire closing devices (carefully cleaned out) and filled it with a quarter pint of raspberries, a quarter cup sugar, and filled the rest with gin.



This is the first day of the project, which is supposed to take at least six weeks, so I'm not sure how yet it will turn out. I suspect the recipe is for a much larger batch than I've made, but my flask came with instructions not to leave anything in there for more than three days, so until I get a glass lined flask, I'll stick to smaller batches.

I hear the best part of this technique is eating the gin soaked fruit afterwards. I'm basically going to have the best short cake ever in two months.

If you have an opinion on gin (which seems to be falling out of fashion with younger drinkers) leave it in a comment below.